If Netflix started paying my ISP, I would drop Netflix in a heartbeat (if I had it lol). Why pay for something twice when I can pay nothing and still get it all. Arr a pirates life to be. Seriously though the FCC needs to open their lobbyist covered eyes and see the damage that is being done.

As an AT&T Uverse TV & internet customer I am happy my Netflix will stream faster. That being said, I am pissed off at AT&T for demanding payment. AT&T isn't even a "backbone." They are my ISP, and I already pay them $51/month for internet and I hate that they are ganging up on Netflix.

Seriously, the fact that I have zero other options for fiber means they should be regulated as a monopoly and be just dumb pipes...

I wish that providers would work this shit out on their own and use it specifically as a marketing tool. This way, they get to have it both ways: Netflix gives AT&T money, and AT&T gets to tout their Netflix performance.

Could you imagine a world where a service provider cuts a deal for a content partner and then touts their superior performance?

As a Tier 1 network, they actually ARE a backbone as well as your ISP #technologytechnicalities

Last I read, Level 3 carries several times the transit of Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast combined. I'm not sure I would claim any of those 3 incumbents are "back bones" anymore. They're just monopolistic last mile providers with a lot of CDNs having to plug in or lose customers.

It was some document from Google a many years ago talking about Internet infrastructure and it placed Level 3 first with around 20%, Google about 5%, and an unnamed Tier 1 in 3rd-place below 1% of the Internet, 4th and 5th place were even smaller Tier 1s.

If we're going to be talking about the Internet Backbone, you may as well just talk about Level 3.

In other words, you wish that every content provider pays an unlimited amount of extortion to ISPs and doesn't complain? Because that's what the ISPs are trying to do and nobody can stop them if nobody knows about it.

If Netflix started paying my ISP, I would drop Netflix in a heartbeat (if I had it lol). Why pay for something twice when I can pay nothing and still get it all. Arr a pirates life to be. Seriously though the FCC needs to open their lobbyist covered eyes and see the damage that is being done.

One thing that hasn't come out yet is how much Netflix is paying and how much Netflix is avoiding paying by bypassing Level3 and Cognet and other backbone providers. I doubt this is costing Netflix as much as we think it is, and it could be revenue-neutral.

This isn't "extortion", it isn't a "fee". It is an investment in physical infrastructure that alIows data to get from point A to point B faster. It would be like if Amazon said "Hey US Postal Service, we would like to pay you money to expand some operations to Sunday so we can deliver packages to customers in a more timely manner" or "Hey UPS, we will pay you to set up operations at our warehouse so we can directly load shipments onto your trucks" (<-- things they actually do) They aren't violating "parcel neutrality" or some other such nonsense by doing that.

I really wish people would try to actually have a clue what they are talking about before running their mouths in internet comments.

The FCC is too corrupt and toothless to do anything about it. Likewise, the majority of the US Congress are on the payroll of the telecom giants.

I guess this is why North America is falling behind when it comes to telecom infrastructure. It's a culture of corruption. The sad thing is that it has very serious consequences that could affect us in the long run.

It would be like if Amazon said "Hey US Postal Service, we would like to pay you money to expand some operations to Sunday so we can deliver packages to customers in a more timely manner" or "Hey UPS, we will pay you to set up operations at our warehouse so we can directly load shipments onto your trucks" (<-- things they actually do) They aren't violating "parcel neutrality" or some other such nonsense by doing that.

Your argument implies that the USPS wasn't first slowing down the delivery of Amazon's packages in order to force Amazon to pay the USPS after Amazon's customers got really upset by the delay that didn't need to exist in the first place except the deliverer wasn't getting a big enough cut.

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I really wish people would try to actually have a clue what they are talking about before running their mouths in internet comments.

Looks like AT&T figured out that having faster access to Netflix is a competitive advantage, no matter what sort of deal you did to get there. More people care that Netflix streams in HD over U-Verse than care that AT&T applied the thumb screws to Netflix over a peering deal.

This isn't "extortion", it isn't a "fee". It is an investment in physical infrastructure that alIows data to get from point A to point B faster. It would be like if Amazon said "Hey US Postal Service, we would like to pay you money to expand some operations to Sunday so we can deliver packages to customers in a more timely manner" or "Hey UPS, we will pay you to set up operations at our warehouse so we can directly load shipments onto your trucks" (<-- things they actually do) They aren't violating "parcel neutrality" or some other such nonsense by doing that.

I really wish people would try to actually have a clue what they are talking about before running their mouths in internet comments.

Except that ATT's customers are already paying ATT for that infrastructure. Well, at least, that's the idea. ATT obviously is not satisfied with that; they have to milk both sides for transit.

If we want to engage in absurd analogies (And, of course, we do! We're talking about ISPs on Ars!) it's like the Postal Service charging both the sender and the receiver of a package.

This isn't "extortion", it isn't a "fee". It is an investment in physical infrastructure that alIows data to get from point A to point B faster. It would be like if Amazon said "Hey US Postal Service, we would like to pay you money to expand some operations to Sunday so we can deliver packages to customers in a more timely manner" or "Hey UPS, we will pay you to set up operations at our warehouse so we can directly load shipments onto your trucks" (<-- things they actually do) They aren't violating "parcel neutrality" or some other such nonsense by doing that.

I really wish people would try to actually have a clue what they are talking about before running their mouths in internet comments.

No, it would be like if the US postal service said (internally): Gosh, there are an awful lot of packages coming in from Amazon. What if we just refused to accept more packages from Amazon unless they pay us money. We'll allow the amount of packages they sent us in 2004 to continue, but anymore, and we'll just tell them they have to wait. Eventually they'll pay us, because hey, there's no other way they're getting packages to our customers on Saturday like they promised their customers.

As a Tier 1 network, they actually ARE a backbone as well as your ISP #technologytechnicalities

Last I read, Level 3 carries several times the transit of Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast combined. I'm not sure I would claim any of those 3 incumbents are "back bones" anymore. They're just monopolistic last mile providers with a lot of CDNs having to plug in or lose customers.

Verizon's network:Picture it as a clean, ultramodern gated community, with swimming pools and a golf course, and lots of little boys running around in just their swim trunks, because the Verizon CEO looks a lot like a pedophile. Everything is state of the art, gleaming, perfect.

Only this perfect network metaphor is in the middle of a desert, surrounded by a thousand miles of nothing, save a narrow strip of public highway pockmarked with potholes.

Despite being state of the art, the town will stagnate as all the essential amenities of life fail to reach it, because the road is too long and too narrow and the shoulders of the road are infested with explosive hidden boils of rattlesnakes. The town will wither and die, insular and pathetic. The Verizon CEO's precious topless male children will become shambling dead eyed husks, their bellies protruding with disease and death, their teeth bloody with the helpless sacrifice of their parents. Unfortunately, cannibal zombie children really turns the Verizon CEO's crank, so things will keep getting worse until the gleaming perfect town is empty, and all the things within its perfect walls are nothing but dust.

And in this haunted burg, if one were to stand, breathing in the remains of golden promises and perfect dreams eternally deferred, one might hear a whisper in the wind, a voice that is all the voices of all the dead of that town. And that voice, sibilant as a rattlesnake's warning, would hiss: "God fucking dammit, a hundred bucks a month and I can't watch American Dad! in fucking HD?"

Namely, as Peter Bright has already pointed out, this has nothing to do with net neutrality since the problems are occurring at the interconnects, and not because of preferential treatment of packets on the carrier's network. That doesn't necessarily mean that the FCC shouldn't try to address this with regulatory oversight. But it's not a 'net neutrality' issue.

Why the Hell is the DoJ allowing the three largest ISPs to openly run a racket against consumers and content providers? This type of business practice is completely illegal, yet the government doesn't seem to give a shit that it's happening!

One could also argue that collusion is happening as well, but these corrupt companies would probably get off on a technicality given collusion has to be done with secret agreements.

I actually do have a question to this.If AT&T gets paid by Netflix, does the stream still count against the data cap or will that be forgiven by AT&T?

I don't think AT&T has caps, yet (Note to AT&T: don't get any damned ideas!!!!)

I think they do. Currently i have Uverse and i think its 250GB. I don't break it but i think they do. Or is this maybe market based?

I'm pretty sure it's nationwide. I happened to be in a product focus group last week and looked at a metric shit-ton of ATT Uverse marketing material as part of that. It all had the 250GB cap in the fine print.

To be clear, it's not a true cap, it's when overage charges start. And you get at least one month of overages free - they send you a nice warning mail the first time you actually go over, and then in future months send you notices when you hit certain percentages (I think it was 65% and 90%).

If you go over, they charge $10 for another 50GB.

ATT DSL has a 150GB cap. I'm on it and pay an overage maybe every 18 months. BTW, the emphasis of the product focus group was "how do we get these people on DSL to respond to our 'Uverse upgrade' marketing"?

Namely, as Peter Bright has already pointed out, this has nothing to do with net neutrality since the problems are occurring at the interconnects, and not because of preferential treatment of packets on the carrier's network. That doesn't necessarily mean that the FCC shouldn't try to address this with regulatory oversight. But it's not a 'net neutrality' issue.

While the technical method is different, it has the same business effect.

I actually do have a question to this.If AT&T gets paid by Netflix, does the stream still count against the data cap or will that be forgiven by AT&T?

I don't think AT&T has caps, yet (Note to AT&T: don't get any damned ideas!!!!)

I think they do. Currently i have Uverse and i think its 250GB. I don't break it but i think they do. Or is this maybe market based?

I'm pretty sure it's nationwide. I happened to be in a product focus group last week and looked at a metric shit-ton of ATT Uverse marketing material as part of that. It all had the 250GB cap in the fine print.

To be clear, it's not a true cap, it's when overage charges start. And you get at least one month of overages free - they send you a nice warning mail the first time you actually go over, and then in future months send you notices when you hit certain percentages (I think it was 65% and 90%).

If you go over, they charge $10 for another 50GB.

ATT DSL has a 150GB cap. I'm on it and pay an overage maybe every 18 months. BTW, the emphasis of the product focus group was "how do we get these people on DSL to respond to our 'Uverse upgrade' marketing"?

It's market based, at least as far as DSL goes. I'm also on 6mb DSL, and have no cap, and our market isn't even on a meter (according to att.com). It may well be different for the other side of town, where U-Verse is available, and is capped. We'll not see U-Verse on this side of the county in my lifetime. Too rural, and all that...

Except it has everything to do with net neutrality. AT&T is discriminating based on the source of the packet (in this case, because it is out of their network). AT&T/Verizon/Comcast has the means to address slow Netflix speeds on their end by increasing the amount of interconnects to other Tier 1 service providers.

Instead of a approving a simple card/cable plugin install, which the Tier 1 providers have offered to install and pay for, they opted to charge Netflix for access to their customers.

Hell, the entire Net Neutrality started in the US because of a comment an AT&T (née SBC {née AT&T}) executive said about "Google should pay us money to do searchers".

Yes, in the strictest sense, this is not a net neutrality (at least one interpretation of Net Neutrality) issue, however, the end result is the same...

AT&T: Gee.. that's a really nice video service you got going there, be a shame if we didn't upgrade our connections to you or your backbone providers to get faster speeds to our customers, say... since we arnt doing anything to your packets, and not denying your end users anything... this isn't a net neutrality issue... lets just call it a shakedown shall we, pay us money, and we well make sure that our customers, the ones whom already pay us to connect to you, can get a faster speed to you.

Netflix: ... Do we have a choice?

AT&T: No, we have pretty much have all regulatory agencys and congress in our pockets, pay us or continue to let your customers suffer slow speeds.

The FCC is too corrupt and toothless to do anything about it. Likewise, the majority of the US Congress are on the payroll of the telecom giants.

I guess this is why North America is falling behind when it comes to telecom infrastructure. It's a culture of corruption. The sad thing is that it has very serious consequences that could affect us in the long run.

Behind whom, if I may ask? And do be aware of the differences in the scope of what has to be done when it comes to infrastructure. The US is a VERY LARGE country, and Fed mandates do have impact on where money can be spent.

I'm not saying the telecoms are angels here, but I do think that many people have an unrealistic view of the scope of the problem. Wiring the US is not like wiring S. Korea, Japan, any country in the EU, etc.

The thing that really bothers me about this whole mess is that it didn't just happen overnight. It's not like Netflix just popped out of nowhere and started hammering particular incoming links. I'm sure their network engineers noticed higher and higher average usage patterns until things started getting close to 100% utilization.

Their response to the matter? DO NOTHING.

I'm sure they passed this information up to their superiors, who analyzed it and came up with this plan to allow the traffic to degrade so that they could both disrupt and then extort a potential competitor to their own video business.

Of course, the pawns in this game are just the general public whose only concern is to just watch some TV.